


Wool's Orphanage and the Case of the Good Ripples

by mayachain



Series: Tom Dumbledore(?) [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Companion Piece, Gen, Ripples, The Blitz, Wool's Orphanage (Harry Potter), World War II, meanwhile back at the orphanage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:34:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22032652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayachain/pseuds/mayachain
Summary: Tom Riddle did not have to return to London during the Blitz. His former fellow orphans were still there.
Relationships: Tom Riddle & Wool's Orphanage
Series: Tom Dumbledore(?) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585882
Comments: 1
Kudos: 48





	Wool's Orphanage and the Case of the Good Ripples

** Wool's Orphanage and the Case of the Good Ripples **

Life in London that year was hard. Life as a child in London was harder. Life in a run-down orphanage in a London where food was rationed and bombs fell was harder still.

At Wool’s, there was a bed in one of the dorms that no orphan would claim. The rest of the room had been filled up, the house was filled above capacity what with how many had recently lost their families.

Tom would not be back. Tom had under duress written exactly one letter to his former ‘home’, informing Mrs. Cole of improved circumstances.

The bed he’d slept in was avoided like the plague. Whether out of respect or out of fear, no orphan in their right mind would go near it.

Except on Friday night after curfew. On Friday night after curfew, the bed was approached and the threadbare cover lifted by a brave soul.

Tom didn’t know about this, but that was immaterial. He was the instigator nonetheless, even if this truth was only known to a cluster of raggedly orphans and house-elves.

Once upon a time, Tom had lived in the orphanage and had had meals aplenty and had every so often shared his food. Once upon a time, a house-elf had observed this, and remembered, and now that Tom was living with Aberforth there were children still at Wool’s, children in need.

Wizarding children had priority. The craggy orphanage in bomb-besieged London still received Muggle food stamps and Muggle charity. Mrs. Cole still withheld food from children she considered too uppity.

There was currently no wizard child living inside Wool’s walls. Tom Riddle was doing his very best to forget that the place had ever been his ‘home’. Yet every Friday night after curfew, on a bed that no child would go near, a basket appeared, still there when approached and touched, _real_ , to the wonder of hungry orphans who quickly learned to share between them the Tom-sent abundance of bread, sausage, and fruit. 

.


End file.
